IPL 2026: Punters hire villagers’ bank accounts for Rs 10k-25K, use them for illegal betting

Hyderabad: Mule bank accounts are witnessing high demand this Indian Premier League (IPL) season, with wealthy punters, intending to bet, hunting for poor people to park their illegal money.

The affluent from across professions are actively approaching bank account holders belonging to the lower middle class or below, with the focus tilted more towards those residing in rural areas.

Sources in the betting industry said that the accounts are hired for a one-time bribe of Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000, for placing illegal bets online and parking money in case of a win. The arrangement is made till the IPL season is on. Multiple accounts are used to avoid heavy deposits at a single place to evade the attention of law enforcement agencies.

There are thousands of online betting sites that operate in India, with the main servers set up abroad, mainly in Hong Kong and Singapore. The betting sites give wallets to the punters who register with them. The wallets are used to place bets and receive the amount in case of a win.

However, to transfer the money in the wallet, the punters have to use a bank account, and in case of huge sums, they are not willing to expose themselves.

According to the insiders, the punters are now using mule accounts by paying one-time fees to the actual holder. They are taking control of the accounts and depositing their money to transfer it into the wallets. A similar process would be used to withdraw the winning amount.

‘They are hunting the mules in the villages, believing that it would not be easy for the agencies to detect the racket in smaller, low-profile areas,’ a bookie said, choosing anonymity.

Bookies are expecting gigantic turnover in the current IPL season, estimating each match to witness betting in the range of Rs 5,000 crore. The bets will be placed on winning the toss, boundaries scored in a single over and entire innings, a century by a batsman, total score, and finally the winning team.

Bookies said till a few years back, when online betting was not much in prevalence, a single IPL match would witness Rs 200 to Rs 500 crore worth of betting, depending on the teams playing. ‘We used to be surprised with the Rs 200 to Rs 500 crore worth of business for a match. Now this is another level, even our generation of bookies can’t understand it,’ said an old timer bookmaker.

He said that spot betting, where bets are placed on the score or wicket in the next ball or boundaries in an over, gathered momentum since the online betting business thrived, which attracted a large number of youths. ‘In the current scenario, 80 per cent of the punters are in the age group of 20 to 45 years,’ the bookie said, stressing that the young generation is keen on making quick money, which is pushing them towards spot betting. ‘This is not helping them, as most punters lose a heavy amount in such betting formats. Only bookies are earning in this format, and the young punters are getting destroyed,’ the bookmaker said.

Another popular quick money format in the betting business is the result of the toss. Bookies said the rate for either team winning the toss remains the same, and the result is known immediately. ‘However, this is a dicey thing with no place for observation like it’s in the match result, where people can study the team and performance before placing bets,’ said another bookie.

He cited the example of an entertainment industry magnet who lost Rs 4.5 crore by placing bets on India winning the toss. For months, he placed bets in favour of India winning the toss, whereas the result always came against his prediction, the bookie said.

This was between the end of 2023 and 2025, when India lost the toss 20 times consecutively in international cricket matches. ‘I stopped him in between; otherwise, he would have lost much more,’ the bookie boasted.